african-american leaders. first take us smiley on his book "death of a king" examining the last year of dr. martin luther king's life. and the biography of stokey carmichael and carnell west discusses the book of "black prophetic fire" looking at african-american leaders of the 0th century on c-span 2. >> here are some of our featured programs you'll find this holiday weekend on the c-span networks. saturday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, the supreme court justice alaina cagen at princeton university and then on q&a, glenn kessler on his end of the year biggest pinocchios of 2014 awards. on c-span 2 saturday night at 10:00 on book tv's "afterwards" editor gamen root on supreme court activism and judicial restraint.

and sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern, book critic johnathan yardly who recently retired after 33 years with the "washington post." and on c-span 3 saturday at 3:00 p.m. eastern, the civil war, historians and authors discuss president lincoln's 1964 re-election campaign. sunday afternoon at 4:00 on "real america" tried by fire, a 1965 film chronicling the 84 infantry division in the battle of the bulge. find our complete schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching, call 202-626-3400, and email us @comments @c-span.org. or send us a tweet. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> next, the reverend robert cirico discusses the free market, conservative values and morality, founder of the institute of freedom and

liberty and spoke at the steamboat institute recently. it's about an hour. >> thank you very much. what a great event this is. and what wonderful, warm people are here. i can barely catch my breath way up here in colorado. [laughter] >> lord acton is the name we chose as our kind of icon for the acton institute which families to engage religious thinkers to understand the moral foundations of things like private property and free trade, the importance of contract, the rule of law and the like. and acton once said, he said a lot of different, wonderful, memorable things you probably know best of all his statement that power tends to corrupt an absolute power corrupts absolutely. it's one of the most incorrected quotations in

history. people usually say power corrupts but it's power tends to corrupt. i had the unenviable task of correcting lady thatcher on that. she just looked down her nose t me and said ooh. just so. carry on. but acton also said this, he said that liberty -- that liberty is the political end of man. and that's true enough. the problem arises when we think that the total end of man is liberty. because liberty, after all, is a vacuum, right? it's not a virtue in itself and i know in the liberty loving crowd like this, you might think i'm heretical, pardon the expression but in point of fact think of liberty not as the virtue, not as the goal of our lives but as the context in

which we can negotiate the goal of our life and of course the goal of all life is truth. now, we'll have different apprehensions and understandings of that truth and have vigorous debates about that. but it's not liberty itself. you don't want to grasp for an empty thing, you have to fill liberty with something. liberty gives us the context in which we can true virtue or vice. and i think this is an important part of our movement's heritage. in fact, it's one of the unique things that the founding of the united states brought into political discussion. because prior to that, virtually every institution, every political apparatus and construct spoke about some collective or some entity giving rights to people. of course, if you give

something to someone, you also an take it away from them. the american founding had this insight from a much more ancient insight that there was something inherent in the nature with the human person that comes with a package he or she should have liberty. we recognize rights. we protect rights. we also can obfuscate rights and violate rights but every human being is a rights bearer by his nature. and i think for our movement, to forget that, to emphasize too quickly the utilitarian benefits of liberty which are manifest and obvious, especially when we compare it with the colossal wreck of socialism. to emphasize too much the utilitarian dimensions of human freedom, to neglect the, i might call it anthropological

roots, that is who we are as human beings, why we have liberty invested in our nature is to undermine a very important and i think compelling part of what the movement for freedom is in our nation and indeed in our world because if we understand there's a common ancestry to all people, i'm going to describe it in a judeo-christian language. i believe it to others from different traditions to describe it in their language, but i basically use a kind of natural law framework, a grammar, if you will, that would express, i think, to any reasonable person why it is that human beings by their nature are rights bearers. and then if we can understand that, then and only then can we for a secure foundation

an understanding of liberty in our day, in our generation, in our day. if we get the anthropology wrong, anything we conduct on top of it, no matter how elaborate or seemingly beautiful will also be faulty. and if you ask me to identify one thing at the root of all the confusion not only in our politics but culture today, it is this question, it's the question that the psalmist put together, psalm 8, what is man that thou art mindful and the son of man that thou visittest him? if we are the sum total of our physical parts, then we are a of k of dust upon a speck dust floating in a calm and cruel university. but if we are something more than merely or physicality, we certainly are physical and why we have to respect utilitarian

dimensions of liberty and why we have to respect the institutions of politics and culture but there's something more to us because we were built for something more. we contain within us eternity. i like the way c.s. lewis put it in such a memorable fashion and articulates this judeo-christian anthropology so well. he says, you have never met a mere mortal. everyone with whom you have ever come in contact, every shop girl from whom you've purchased something, every person you've ever loved or hated is either an immortal horror or an everlasting splendor but you've never met a mere mortal. he also said in follow up to that, the most sacred thing

that presents itself to our senses next to the blessed sacrament is our neighbor. this is why we must build societies that are not merely free. freedom is necessary but it's not sufficient. we must have freedom but we need to ask freedom for what? so for a few moments i want to talk about anthropology. i want to talk about history from a reasonable point of view and again i invite dialogue from all perspectives from secular believes or unbelieves or christians and jews and muslims and buddhists and whatever else, if we can agree on reason here then i think we can advance the conversation in a deeper level rather than people talking past each other as we so

so we begin with who is man? who are we? the most obvious thing about us is our physicality, isn't it? in the book of genesis, describes the creation of the world as being good and then the formation of man and woman from, interestingly enough, the dust of earth, into which he breathed the breath of life, and doesn't that account for the human reality? i mean, think about that. we are at the dust of the earth. but there is something in each of us that transcends the physical. now, we could quote bible verses or theologians on this, but just reflect on yourself, just reflect on your grandchild, just reflect on human beings. we have the capacity to transcend or physicality, don't we? when we love, we transcend our physicality.

you give yourself away to the beloved, and what happens? you are not diminished. you are enriched. in our creativity, we see this, whether it is in art, or in music, or in business, because it requires an understanding and respect for the physical world and all of the confines that sets up for us. we live in a world of scarcity, but somehow we can produce more than we consume. what is that in a human person? it is our reason, our minds. that is what sets us apart from all the rest of creation, some of which is also sentiment, some of which is also physical, right? but still does not have the capacity to reason. reason is the thing that distinguishes us from even the

most intelligent of the animals. we engage the world by use of our minds and our imagination, our ambitions, and our capacity to see potentials. you see, we reflect on ourselves, and we can even -- and no animal could do this -- reflect upon our own reflection. and the result of that is that we establish a relationship with the material world that is more than physical. animals are bound to the material world by instinct. man is bound to the material world by reason. and because of that, we can create. we can utilize. we can take things that have no particular value and shape them in such a way that all of a sudden they become valuable for others. that is the origin of private

property, right in our nature. animals don't do that. beavers build dams, that's true. but they don't build hotels and rent them out to other weavers. [laughter] that is creative capacity, an indication of our transcendent potential. if we only look at ourselves as mere physical entities that live only by our passion and not by our reason, then we find ourselves slaves, the antithesis of reason. in one of the physical structures that violates that freedom, including the right to property, which is not just the right to a material object by itself, but all of the intelligence that goes into the creation of things, when we allow structures to be built that inhibit that, we destroy not merely financial prosperity,

but we pollute the entire culture, the view of ourselves, the view of others. this is all related to the lowering level of standards of beauty, music, architecture. all of this is of a piece because you and i are the summit of creation. in fact, again, according to a biblical view, it is into our hands the creation has been entrusted. we are a steward of creation and in order to do that faithfully, we must be free to bring about a world that is better than what has existed before us. you see, politics is not the ultimate.

it is necessary, but if we don't develop a moral vocabulary to speak to our society in moral terms, we will not be able to raise the army that will be needed to protect the right of human liberty in our generation and in subsequent generations. this i suggest to you, the assault on the dignity of human life, the assault on reason, the assault on the freedom of for -- of worship and religion, the assault on the right to private property, the assault on the rule of law, the assault on the right to contract and association, all of the other similar rights that are similar and connected, results in the distraction of our civilization, of our cultures, of ourselves. that is why it's important to always think together about our

rights and responsibilities. i like that in the steamboat statement of principles. rights and responsibilities. not just rights. human beings are not only physical and transcendent, we are also individual and relational. think about that. that is another unique thing about human beings. we are individual, in that from the first moment of our existence, we were a biological entity different from our mothers. our dna was different from the womb in which we existed, and yet we were in relationship. and after someone is born, that continues. we are still more independent,

yet more obviously individual. and yet in relationship. we go through our whole lives balancing those polarities of our individual and social capacity. the error of radical individualism is to think we don't owe anybody, anything, at any time, or we even invent the world in which we come to or that we created ourselves. all of that is nonsense. and yet to not recognize we are in relationship leaves us isolated. on the other hand, you have the great error of communism, so that human beings become only a part, a cog in a great

socialistic experiment. you see, if you get the anthropology of either of these wrong, you get the societies upon which they are built wrong. rather, we have to create a society that recognizes that we are both individual and social and that the best part of our social reality is our ability to choose where we will invest ourselves, our ability to choose friendships and fraternity with other people, our ability to help those who are in need because we recognize a part of ourselves there. but to create a society where the state is the dominant, indeed at times almost the exclusive actor in social causes, in social remedies is to exclude not only human creativity and initiative but

it's an attempt to distort human nature itself which is what all of the great collectivist thinkers thought, whether it was carl marx or lennon or hitler, that they could manipulate human nature in such a way as to make it serve some ideological end rather than meditating on the "is," the given of what we are, and derive from that truth the thought, that is, what we shouldbe, what we can be in our nature. now, from my perspective, the best way to approach this fill philosophically is through the christian lens. as i say, if others have other reflections on this, i just think that the scriptures conform to our natural reason about these things, that line in

the founding documents that speak about nature and nature's god. precisely the tradition that goes back through the history of christianity, into judaism, even into the ancient world, the romans and the greeks. it's a truth that wise people have thought about over the years, because we understand, especially in an incredibly technologically sophisticated moment that we are all experiencing and honestly, probably even being very annoyed by often. we understand that it's not just data that we need. you know, with all due respect to sergeant friday, it isn't just the facts, ma'am, that we need. it's the meaning behind the facts. it's wisdom that we need, not just data. wisdom. and this is the reflection of an integrated, holistic view of who human beings are.

many of you are involved in the world of work, business. you have many literally mundane concerns. mundane, meaning daily concerns that occupy your time. and some of you may think, well, there's no particularly spiritual or poetic dimension to worrying about accounts and how the factory is operating or whatever physical labor you're involved with. you may think, that's the world of utility and it has nothing to do with the world of beauty or poetry or morality or transcendence. but that's a mistake and it's a deadly mistake. each human being has a call, a vocation, to do something based on who they are and based on what their different capacities are.

to be completely equal would mean to be the same, right? we all have different capacities. one is a better painter. another person is a better musician. another is a better athlete. we're none of us equal. but each of us has this call to be as excellent as we can be with what we can do. and if you only see your business as a way to meet a bottom line rather than to build a community, rather than to promote an ethic, a sense of real community, of real society, not these artificial impositions that come from far away bureaucracies in the form of tedious regulations, if you see that your enterprise is a sphere influence to create the little platoons that make society operate, if you don't see that,

then your energy evaporates. but if you do see that, then you understand that your mundane day-to-day physical labor can have eternal significance. a french philosopher once put it this way, and i wish this phrase was above every seminary. he said, if you want to build a beautiful cathedral like that of notre dame, which has spires reaching up to the heavens, representing the rising of the soul to god, if you want to do something like that, you must first understand geometry. and this is the phrase i'd love to see, that i'd love in every seminary. pietity is never a substitute for technique.

[laughter] for without technique, piety is helpless to use nature as the glory of god. piety is never a substitute for technique. when you grasp the importance of that idea, you understand that integrated into our everyday life are the offers of grace, that is, in theological language -- again, you'll use different language for yourself, from your own tradition, but in my tradition, an offer of grace is an offer of relationship with god, and that there is not one point in the universe that is not offering us this relationship with a transendant. a monk said, dad, i'm so glad i found my vocation, praying day

and night. we get up at 3:00 in the morning, when all the world is hushed, to pray. his father wrote him back and said, son, your mother and i are so proud you found your vocation. but i want you to remember one thing. many a night, at 3:00 in the morning, when all the world was hushed, your mother and i rose from our bed to change your dirty diapers. [laughter] and in that, we found our vocation. imagine that. this is really incarnational, right? this is understanding. i mean, in a baby's diapers, you find your vocation. [laughter] but if that can be said of a baby's diapers, it can be said of your factories. it can be said in front of your computer terminal or in front of a blackboard. if god is not on the floor of

the new york stock exchange, how can he be god among us? how can he be emanuel? so your work is so important. that's why politics has a role to play. i'm not a political leader. but the role to play is to create spheres of freedom along with the moral tutoring of a society that is not only free but is good as well. a society that understands itself because its people understand themselves, that our end is more than the physical comfort or the passions indulged in, that we have an end beyond this world, and that's why freedom is a sacred thing, even if it's not the whole answer. i opened with a quote and i'd like to close with another quotation. liberty is the delicate fruit of

a mature civilization. out on the side of the house that i lived in, in a religion computer a while back, quite a while back now, when we moved in, we were doing some repairs. i noticed, on the side of the house, there was this big tree that went up in the air. it was taller than the house itself. now, i'm from brooklyn, new york. >> yay! [applause] >> see? see? what do we know from trees, right? no, no, no. there was a tree in brooklyn once. [laughter] i think somebody got it. [laughter] so there was this tree up there. and i'm looking up, and part of it is in full bloom, and part of it is dead. dead leaves on it. so i called the tree doctor. who knew there was even a tree doctor? we called the tree doctor.

he came and he looked. picked up some of the leaves, picked up the bark. came up to the porch, where i was watching him. and he said, i'm sorry, the tree is dead. we've got to take it down. i said, now, how can the tree be dead? these leaves just came out. he said, i know. it's an illusion. [laughter] i said, they're really not there? [laughter] and he said, no. what i mean by that is that there is still some of the sap working its way through the tree. but year after year, there will be less and less of that sap, because the roots themselves are dead. and you've got to take the tree down, because in these michigan winters, you could have a good storm and it could blow onto the house. we've got to take it down. i think of that as a metaphor for our civilization right now. i do not believe the roots are dead. but they have been sorely

neglected, forgotten, and infected. many in our culture today live off the legacy of the past. they're just happy with the sap that's running through it right now, but they don't realize that they're not producing more sap. they haven't given the nourishment to the roots, because they haven't tended to the roots. they don't understand the roots. and the roots are everything i've said. and the solution to the decay is going to be to get into those roots and renourish them, renourish them with the great traditions of the west. renourish them with the moral appreciation of our enterprise, of the importance of government that is limited and not doing for us what we can do for ourselves. we must tend to those roots so that that delicate fruit can survive again in our mature

civilization. thank you very much. [applause] thank you. you're very kind. we have some time for q&a. so i really enjoy this kind of a program, especially with -- >> father, real quick, could you also just make the point that the action institute for the study of religion and liberty is not a catholic organization. >> yes, it is not. we work with all different organizations. i mean i am a cofounder of the institute, but most of our support comes from noncatholics. most of our outreach is to noncatholics. we have a heavy catholic outreach, of course, but most of it is with protestants, of

various flavors, and eastern orthodox, christian orthodox people. an occasional jewish person and even a few muslims from time to time. even secular people. now, this lady is going to ask a question that i'm very happy to translate, because as you know, i'm bilingual, i can translate from brooklyn into standard english. >> father -- >> father. [laughter] >> um, in the old testament, every time israel turned its back on god, israel was punished. this country is morally bankrupt. i'm afraid for it, what's going to happen. can we have a revival of morality, not necessarily religion, but morality? in the newspapers we read of hit-and-run accidents every day. that's immoral. this is -- what do you think?

can we go back? thank you. >> yeah. i think we can't go back in the sense that we can put the toothpaste back in the tube. and i think sometimes, especially conservatives, think all we need to do is revive ozzie and harriet and everything will be all right. obviously there was really something wrong philosophically speaking in the 1940's and 1950's, because it gave us the 1960's and 1970's, so there was something wrong there. don't get me wrong. i like ozzie and harriet. but i think what we need to do is to do something new today. we need to understand the idoim of our own culture and we need to speak in that language. i'm not talking about curse words. i'm talking about to the values, because people are so confused. i don't think our society is completely morally corrupt.

i think if you live on the coast, you might think that. you remember when reagan was elected president and somebody in new york, manhattan, said, how can this be? nobody i know voted for him, you know. [laughter] that really happened. so i think what we have to do is be very careful that we're not reading the new york times too seriously, because that's like the editorial page, very often fantasyland. now the wedding page is fantasyland. and the obituaries, everything is curtailed, you know, or manipulated to create a certain culture. our popular media is like that as well that is, movies and

things. i think we need to look for things that will really speak to the values that are authentic moral concerns that many people have. and there are a great many of them. i mean, children have a civilizing effect on many people. not on all people, unfortunately, because now we hear about children just being ut in wastebaskets and things like that. i think people have to think about things that are more solid and reliable. and we have to be creative enough and winsome enough to be able to articulate these values, not as hostile values to people. we ought not to be and we ought not to let ourselves be characterized as skoals, telling people what they need to do and stuff like that. we need to be winsome. we need to call people to their better selves that they know.

by their nature, they know this. i think it's going to require a great division of labor. some will be involved in politics, others in education, others in the social media, creative writing, artwork, all this kind of thing. but i'm afraid to say that it's much easier to pull apart a toaster than it is to put it back together. and a lot of the toaster have been pulled apart and is laying on the table with a lot of crumbs. we just need to think about how this whole thing fits together again. but, you know, i look at a room like this and i see people who are dedicated and who are energetic and who are creative. i have hope for the future. i'm just not going to let them take it away. >> father bob, over here in the corner.

>> i'm a robert, by the way. >> a robert. i'm sorry. okay. you remind me of, and this need, i think, is national, for another bishop fulton. >> that's a great honor. >> what you have said today, i think, more people need to hear and on an ongoing basis. and have you given that any thought? >> yes. in the last 25 years, i've given it a lot of thought. [laughter] first of all, let me say how highly i respect fulton sheen, which is why i would never make the analogy between myself and him. i think he was a great man. by the way, that is the example of what i'm talking about. he spoke to the people of his time in the way that the people then could understand him. do you know that fulton sheen had a television show? many of you are old enough to remember fulton sheen. he, i think, was the -- i forget

what the award was. the emmys are for television? he was up against, in the sunday night lineup, i think it was, he and milton burrell were up competing with one another, and fulton sheen won. and he came up to the microphone and he said, first i would like to thank my writers, matthew, mark, luke and john. [laughter] that's what i mean about being winsome, you know. but i mean, i founded the acta institute to promote these ideas. i'm not interested in promoting myself. i think in that age, sheen, that that one person, spokesperson, was an important thing. i think we need a much more diverse thing now institutionally, and we need a lot of voices saying a lot of things.

i don't want to leave this planet and have the work i've done disappear. we're already talking about succession planning in our organization so that the next generation, that this institution will go on. last june, we had 1,000 students attend a four-day seminar offering 120 courses. they came from 80 countries with 60 teachers, mentors at this. and next year, we'll have more than that, because they recommend others. and our -- one of our facebook pages, poverty cure, has about a million and a half "likes" on it. and why is this? because i'm the oldest person on our staff. they're pushing this forward. they understand the social media. now, we're not the whole thing. we're a part of it. we try to bring the conversation together and then enable other groups like steamboat institute and other very good groups to do

more than what we are doing, to the foundations of the american republic, things like that. so we are doing it. and go to our website, and see the plethora of scholarship and films and materials and curricula that you can use in your churches, in your study groups, in your organizations, and i pray god, when you go there, you'll see it's top quality stuff. it's winsome. it's fun. it's interesting. it's factual. it's innovative. and it's on the cusp. >> father, it seems like one of the real dichotomy is -- i'm back here. ha ha! yeah. this is god speaking! >> oh! [laughter] >> between the liberals and the conservatives or the republicans and democrats, the democrats really seem to believe that if we just had taxes, higher and higher, in order to take care of

all of these societal ills, that would be their goal. and i would just like you to explain why we have an opposite goal. >> yes. let me offer a few correctives to that. the first is that i would say that the opposite of that error would be the error to think that everything would be fine. government has its place. it should be modest. it should be the resort of last resort, the resource of last resort not the first resort. and the other thing i would say in terms of engaging the question not just a bunch of conservatives talking about this because we get together and we complain all the time, right? but to say what is it that motivates the progressives to

say we need more money. the best motivation as a christian i'm taught to always try and then the confessional all the time because i don't do elieve that ry and b that person who is calling for the abolition of private property or something close to it really intends good by it. ok. so what are they concerned with? they're concerned with the vull -- vulnerable with the poor, with racism, they're concerned with a whole host of things. are they inconsistent in that concern? yes. are they sometimes impervious to arguments that show that too much government creates vulnerabilities? yes. but if question just take that intention on their part and speak to that intention, then question say to them somethng

not that we differ in our goals, but we differ in the way to get there. we don't believe that bureaucrats or highly complex litical entities know enough of what the need is. it's not that government is too cheap. it's that government is too stupid. and what i mean by stupid. i'm not saying that about individual people. what i'm saying is that human freedom especially as it expresses itself in a market through prices an things, when hose price signals are free, you really know what the needs are. if you cut the information flow that comes from the decisions of thousands and thousands of people ho are reflecting their subjective needs in the market based on what they buy and what they sell, what they demand as consumers. if you cut out that free flow

of information, you make society much more stupid based on that so that we really don't know. so that we have too many size 13 shoes and not enough 9 1/2 shoes which is what happened in every socialistic experiment. so to speak lovingly, gently with good intentions to their intention and then try to show them the way out. and then when they don't listen, then you shove this down their throat. something like that? i was joking. i'm joking. all the progressives watching this on c-span just dropped heir chobli all over the couch. > father robert, are you awe diocesan priest?

>> i'm a diocesan priest. i sue people for calling me a jesuit. oh, my goodness, i forgot we have a jesuit pope. no -- brakbrak a n is muslim, a christian, a jew? >> i'm not any in my position. i've never heard his confession. i've never even met him. if i had dealt with him spiritually, i wouldn't be able to answer that question anyway, right? let me say as an outsider just observing as best i can tell, i ink he is what the political demands call upon him to be at ny given moment. that's what i think he is. that's what he's dedicated to. [applause]

and i say that with all due respect to the president and deep concern for his immortal soul. [laughter] >> over here. >> you're laughing. i meant it. >> over here. >> oh. >> why is it that we don't hear more moral outrage from the senior leadership of the muslim community and particularly the immans? if there was a group of radical catholics that were hijacking the religion -- >> oh, there is. >> but it would be sung from on high from the pope and yet, there's the occasional imman that will make a comment but i'm astounded that there's not a bunch of it that's -- >> yeah, that's a good question. and i've asked that question myself. and it may be that this may not

be the whole answer. i'm sure it's not the whole answer. it may be a combination of hings such as they're hire arc rchal construct is they don't have the higher authority . their higher authority the koran. it's rare that you have scholars and say things. where these groups say things that are authority tave they have been good things, you know, in that they've called upon -- on dwrube right now, there's an imman -- i've forgotten where maybe in egypt or in iraq who is literally crying for the killing of christians that he's seen in his own country. it may be that in certain circumstances they are literally afraid to do that

because of the more radical element. here's my admittedly untutored take on the whole islamic thing that's going on in our country, in our world. and that is i desperately want to believe and from own experience with muslims do believe that the vast majority trying to live good lives and want to live in societies where people can live in peace and certainly historically we've seen that possibility. but what they don't have are teachers who applied the teachings and applied them to different generations, how to

develop the church's teachings. i think it awaits its augustan. it awaits its thomas. for some muslims that would be considered heresy. i don't have a dog in that fight in the sense that i'm not a muslim so i'm not able to make those determinations. but if -- if a peaceful islam were her rhett cal to the h what we're seeing to isis then i would welcome the heresy. i think what you right now -- and the other thing that islam doesn't have that at least an tianity has is equipment -- equivalent statement that says pay to caesar what is caesar thereby setting a difference between

power and authority. they're both forms of constraint. but power is a form of con thraint is external. in other words you are coerced from the outside. authority is a constraint that is interior so that when someone corrects you and you will believe that what they're saying is true even though you don't want to do it, you do it because you believe in the authority of the argument or of the person. that's why i would differ with mrs. cheney in this respect. i think we should be able to tell people is right and wrong. and you should be able to disagree with me for telling you that, right? this is the wonderful basis of tolerance in society. tolerance is not aquiescence of ideas or lifestyles that you don't agree with that. you say i will not raise my

hand against you. the line we have to draw and this is what's come by islam is that islam does not have this division between authority and power. it is admittedly a thee catic religion so the government is the authority of god and must be. this is why you have sharia law. if i'm understanding this whole thing correctly. and i think that they have to come up with another way of nuancing their own theology so that the more and the vastly outnumbering muslim who is want to live in society can take that within their religious tradition to make these kinds of distinctions. >> it really struck me when you say there's an assault on reason. for the past few years i feel like i've been living in a parallel universe where people ll say black is white and white is black and obamacare is

working. but when you say black is black and white is white and obamacare is not working. ow do you deal with that winsomely. -- win somely? >> you could make fun of them. i guess that wouldn't be winsome. let me just make a little bit of a confession. not too much. don't get salivating here. but i was on the left for many years. i'm a revert to my catholic faith. i had abandoned that in my teens. and i was involved with the political left in california for about four or five years, i knew jane jane fonda, tom hayden, you know -- oh, you don't like that. well, maybe you coloradoans will like that i gave jane fonda a joint in the back of a ay community center.

because she said tom wouldn't let her keep in the house in a campaign to which i said fine feminist you are maybe that's what makes me -- i knew these people as people or i used to. i don't hang out with jane fonda anymore. but i know that there are many good people and they may not quite get the point on why isn't are is -- not only functioning yet. it's probably functioning as well as it is going to function right now because it hasn't really completely been unrolled. but to help them understand a little bit of just basic economics and why if you just went to a grocery store without any prices on anything, well, the good meat would be taken

first and there would be nothing left. there would be no way to coordinate things. that's the problem with not only obamacare but with the health care system as a whole. but there are other people who are present wheer know much more about that. i think the question of winsomeness is a different question than the question of argumentation. in other words the facts are the facts and we need to present those reasonably. win someness is saying it in a gentle way that speaks with respect for the other person. that could be really disarming and it gets to the core value where you can have a more fruitful conversation and a more profound disagreement. i've got an edge to me, right? brooklyn. there's that edge. so you know, but i think we -- and least try and

do that. >> one question. i'll go to this side and then i'll come to you. >> there are many in the conservative movement who believe that conservatives need to call a truce on the social issues. that the conservative -- right-wing conservative religious right i should say have hampered our ability to win elections. i'd be interested iner noing why i'd imagine you disagree with that. and i'd like to know why you think it's important to talk about the social issues and in talking about them can you roll model how we should do it taking perhaps abortion and traditional marriages as examples? >> first of all, the actin institute respects the division of labor in the conservative movement and the broadly interested right side movement.

as an institute we don't deal with a lot of those questions. on occasion i will sign on to something or i will speak to something in my capacity as a priest. but i feel there are so many groups that are doing such good work it should come tom no surprise to you where i stand in same sex marriage or abortion. but in my work, we deal with that we see and religious leadership. i am not convinced -- i think the same thing applies to the social conservative movement as it does tow the economic conservative movement in terms of the need for winsomeness and respect for the people so that we need to speak with great love especially on questions

like abortion because women find themselves in arduous situations very often, not the majority of women because a lot of those women are having abortions. >> and i've heard confessions on homosexuality which i do. and i know people are struggling with these issues and i always have that in front of my mind when i'm speaking about that. i think what we need do is exactly what jesus did and now i'm speaking from a theological point of view and i'm going to let you political wonks put it nto your own bailey wick but

jesus when he engages the whom objectively has committed adultery and other the mosaic law is stoning, doesn't say don't stone her. first he engages the woman. not directly at first. but she has the sense that he loves her. and he deals with her accusers. and he establishes himself on her side and then he finally says to her in the end go and sin no more which makes the whole story -- that's the hard thing. it's to hold up justice and still permeate love because justice without love becomes cruelty. and i think that's what we need to do. now how would you translate that into political wonkry, that's your job to do that. i don't think as a point of fact that abortion is a losing proposition because all of the

polls indicate that more and more and more people are becoming at least to some extent more pro-life than they were before. i think we're on a different curve with regard to homosexual "marriage". i would apply the same thing to that, to engage people, to love people foremost and try to lower the passions an discuss these things reasonably. so that's how i -- >> we are out of time. but i just promised this one. >> you did promise. >> and i won't answer too long no matter what he says. don't provoke me. [laughter] >> how are we going deal today gressives nsky pro that are teaching in our

universities. >> we are going to uncover what they're doing. linsky 't know who saul is. that's the anthesis of that entire tactic. it's vulgar. it's impolite. it's destructive. it's why you're seeing all of thesiness dens where people are more and more vulgar. respond with real civility. >> he's been in the hall signing books. thank you, father. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.visit ncicap.org] >> on the next washington journal, terry jeffery would like to discuss from the republican-led 114th congress. and then clarence page talking about his book, race, politics and social change.

washington journal is live at 7:00 eastern. you get to build a conversation on facebook and twitter. >> saturday a knchings with elena kagan at her alma mater, princeton university. here's a look. >> you know, there are rules about what you can ask at these kinds of sitdowns or at least there are rules about what i can say so they knew that they couldn't ask me very direct questions about what they thought of particular cases or issues. so they